Читать онлайн «Homesick»
Автор Эшколь Нево
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Copyright
About the Book
It is 1995 and Noa and Amir have decided to move in together. Noa is studying photography in Jerusalem and Amir is a psychology student in Tel Aviv, so they choose a tiny flat in a village in the hills, between the two cities. Originally called El-Kastel, the village was emptied of its Arab inhabitants in 1948 and is now the home of Jewish immigrants from Kurdistan. Noa and Amir’s flat is separated from that of their landlords, Sima and Moshe Zakian, by a thin wall, but on each side we find a completely different world. Next door lives a family grieving for their eldest son, killed in Lebanon. His younger brother, Yotam, forgotten by his parents, turns to Amir for friendship. And further down the street, as he works at the building site, Saddiq watches the house…
In this enchanting and irresistible novel, the narrative moves from character to character offering us glimpses into their lives. Each of them comes from somewhere different but there’s much about them that’s the same.
About the Author
Eshkol Nevo was born in Jerusalem in 1971. He spent his childhood years in Israel and America and studied copywriting at the Tirza Granot School and psychology at Tel Aviv University. For eight years he worked as a copywriter and then began writing short stories. He now teaches creative writing. Nevo has published a collection of stories, a work of non-fiction and this first novel was awarded the Book Publishers’ Association’s Golden Book Prize (2005). His second novel was a number one bestseller in Israel.
Prologue
In the end, he put all the remaining furniture out on the street. A friend was supposed to come with a van and pick it up. So he waited there. Sat down in an armchair and nibbled on a pear. A neighbour was washing his car, a hose in his hand. He remembered that when he was a child, he used to watch the streams of water running off the cars to see which would be the first to land.
Now he looked at the time. Half-past eight. His friend was fifteen minutes late. That wasn’t like him. Maybe, in the meantime, he should arrange the furniture the way it would be in a living room. Maybe not.A woman whose bags he once carried from the shops made her way between the sofas and smiled at him as if she had something to say.
Another woman stumbled against the cabinet and grumbled: you’re blocking the way.
1
TOPOGRAPHICALLY, WE’RE TALKING about a saddle. Two humps, and between them a shopping mall that’s common ground for all. The hump where the Ashkenazim live is a well-tended town called Mevasseret. It has an air of optimism and the residents share it. The other, once a transit camp for new immigrants from Kurdistan, is a welter of shacks and villas, daisies and debris, tree-lined lanes and dirty streets. Its official name: Maoz Ziyon. Unofficially, it’s called Castel, after the old army post on the top of the hill where soldiers fell during the War of Independence. Now it’s a memorial site visited by their descendants. When you get there, right after the traffic lights, you’ll find Doga and Sons. A small market with not much to it. But if you have a question to ask, that’s where to do it.
